1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to restaurant food preparation equipment and more particularly to equipment relating to deep fryers for removing ice particles and crumbs from food before placing the food into the deep fryer to save shortening from having crumbs and ice therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
In restaurants using deep fryers such as for the preparation of french fries, onion rings and other fried foods the food items are generally precut and stored in frozen food bags. Some of the food items may be breaded. Many of the food items have small pieces of the food item broken off of larger pieces at the ends or had small pieces of the food item packed into the bag at a food processing facility. It the food was frozen, ice crystals, frost and ice particles, accumulated in the bag or on the food will be present when placing the food items into a deep frying basket for frying the food item in a deep fryer. It the ice, crumbs and small portions of the food item are mixed in or are on the food item when the food item is placed in the frying basket then it will then fall into the shortening in the deep fryer and accumulate therein. The accumulated ice, crumbs and small portions of food items burn in the shortening, cause discoloration of the shortening, and use up the shortening reduce the life of the shortening and increases frequency of the need for changing the shortening in the deep fryer.